President Trump offered his “thoughts and prayers” to the victims in the Amtrak train crash and praised “First Responders” for their work at the crash site.
“My thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims involved in this mornings train collision in South Carolina,” he wrote Sunday on Twitter. “Thank you to our incredible First Responders for the work they’ve done! ”
An Amtrak Silver Star was traveling from New York City to Miami when it collided with a CSX freight train early Sunday in Cayce, S.C.
Two members of the Amtrak crew – Michael Kempf, 54, the train’s engineer from Savannah, Ga., and Michael Cella, 36, the conductor from Orange Park, Fla., were killed in the crash that happened at 2:45 a.m.
The train was carrying 139 passengers and a crew of eight when it slammed into the parked freight train and derailed.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said 116 people were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
After the crash, law enforcement officials and emergency crews responded to the scene to free the passengers from the wreckage and transport them to a nearby middle school for shelter.
The injured were taken to hospitals in the region for treatment.
“We know they are shaken up quite a bit. We know this is like nothing else they have ever been through. So we wanted to get them out of the cold, get them out of the weather – get them to a warm place,” Lexington County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Adam Myrick said.
Local officials are trying to determine if a bad switch caused the Amtrak train to leave the main line for a side track where it hit the freight train.